Author's posts
Aug 19 2009
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Science |
1 Smoke-spewing Trabant poised for rebirth as electric car
by Audrey Kauffmann, AFP
Sun Aug 16, 7:53 pm ET
| BERLIN (AFP) – Once the much-mocked symbol of drab communist East Germany, Trabant cars are revving up for a dramatic rebirth as electric cars — 20 years after they drove through the fallen Berlin Wall to freedom.
A team of German firms is developing the “new Trabi” or Trabant NT, a revamped version of the famously unreliable and unattractive cars, and is aiming to unveil a prototype at the Frankfurt motor show in September. And in contrast to the old model, whose noisy two-stroke engine sent a polluting cloud of burnt oil and petrol into the air as it chugged slowly through the streets behind the Iron Curtain, the new 21st century Trabi could hardly be greener. |
Aug 17 2009
Weekend News Digest
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Exiled Afghan general returns as vote looms
By David Fox, Reuters
1 hr 21 mins ago
| KABUL (Reuters) – Exiled Uzbek leader General Abdul Rashid Dostum, whose supporters could swing this week’s presidential election, returned to Afghanistan on Sunday after being given a government all-clear.
Dostum’s supporters, who gave him 10 percent of the vote in the 2004 election, had threatened to withdraw their backing for President Hamid Karzai on August 20 unless the former communist general was allowed to return. The United States made clear its concern over any prospective role for Dostum, a controversial figure associated in the past with factional infighting and accused by human rights groups of abuses. |
Aug 15 2009
Weekend News Digest
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
1 U.S. senator meets Suu Kyi, Myanmar junta leader
Reuters
Sat Aug 15, 11:50 am ET
| YANGON (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Jim Webb met Myanmar top military leader Than Shwe and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday and announced the release of an American jailed for visiting the Nobel peace laureate.
Webb met Than Shwe at the country’s remote new capital of Naypyidaw on the second day of his visit and later talked with Suu Kyi for about 45 minutes at a guest house arranged by government officials in Yangon. Webb’s office later released a statement saying American John Yettaw, who was sentenced to seven years hard labor by Myanmar’s military government, would be released. |
Aug 15 2009
Famous
So I google myself tonight and I find my DocuDharma entry second only to my Cliffs Notes.
Not only that, but the two top image results are from What’s for Dinner.
Impact is funny sometimes.
What is famous?
Now frankly, I don’t often think of myself as famous.
buhdy is much more popular than I am and while he admires my writing on certain technical levels (or at least has said so). I don’t like any of it except for particular turns of phrase.
Cheap theatrics I can teach anyone.
Fortunately good writing is the least of your problems if you want to be famous.
Persistence and Regularity
Whatever success I have is entirely due to persistence and regularity.
Well, isn’t that what you expect a writer to say? It’s as big a cliche as thanking Touchdown Jesus.
Eat some fucking bran if you want to be regular.
Establishing a reputation
C’mon, let’s all take the Poet’s Pledge-
I, [the Poet’s name], do hereby solemnly pledge:
To be peculiar in the most unusual way I can cook up
To write excellently, or more especially to be known to write excellently
To master bards of old and bards anew, or at least never give on that I haven’t
To advance in gestures of my own and not in the stirrings of a majority, except where money is at stake
To be perceived as morally suspect, no matter what the truth
To sniff at adulation and pooh-pooh honors no matter how much I crave them
To obey whim and eschew duty, or at least appear to
To rove ruffian-like across continents of poems with ease, or at least make them think so
To engage in ridiculous arguments, all hot and sweaty for my own position
To be judicious only in the judging of my own merits and mean about the others
To die young, or if I linger, to be ignored and abused well
To write tons of crap for every good poem I do write, and obfuscate the difference with rhetoric
To suck up to important editors with honeyed words, and cuff the assistant editors often
To bemoan the sorry state of poetry in my country and do not one damn thing about it
To speak so incoherently that everyone thinks I am a genius
That was my thirteenth diary, not that you should be jealous because like a cesspool only the biggest pieces of crap rise to the surface.
Did I mention that only my Cliffs Notes are more famous than I?
Hornbeck’s character is static. He is as opinionated and iconoclastic, attacking institutions and firmly held beliefs, and he does not change throughout the course of the play. His character is also shallow and one-dimensional.
How do you survive?
Well if people had only understood how much I inhabit my character they would surely have strangled me in my cradle because I can’t dance nearly as well as Gene Kelly.
But stories? I bang on the keyboard every day. I average 40+ comments and 4.5 recs per (when I keep track of such things which I never do).
Attempts to silence me fail on the sheer volume of my record.
It also has this additional benefit which is not to be despised-
People know me and are interested.
On becoming the Paris Hilton of the inter tubz
Alas he has passed to a 72 coke bottle fucking paradise.
You can try Pooty Pics.
Aug 12 2009
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Science |
1 ‘Toxic’ seaweed spreading on France’s northern coast
by Clarisse Luca, AFP
Tue Aug 11, 7:08 am ET
| SAINT-BRIEUC, France (AFP) – Mounds of putrified green algae are building up on France’s northern coast, releasing poisonous fumes blamed for the recent death of a horse and the collapse of the rider.
Part of the coastline has been declared off-limits as local authorities acknowledge they are unable to get rid of the decomposing seaweed that has washed up on shores in more than 80 communities across Brittany. Green groups accuse President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government of turning a blind eye to an “environmental cancer” caused by the algae and blame intensive farming for producing nitrates that feed the seaweed’s toxicity. |
Aug 09 2009
Weekend News Digest
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
Now with all the news.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Iran Guard wants former president, moderates tried
By Reza Derakhshi, Reuters
2 hrs 1 min ago
| TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard said on Sunday that opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, a defeated presidential candidate and former president, should be tried for inciting unrest after the disputed presidential poll.
The June 12 election plunged Iran into its biggest internal crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution, exposed deepening divisions in its ruling elite and set off a wave of protests that left 26 people dead. “If Mousavi, (defeated candidate Mehdi) Karoubi and (former president Mohammad) Khatami are main suspects behind the soft revolution in Iran, which they are, we expect the judiciary … to go after them, arrest them, put them on trial and punish them,” said Yadollah Javan, a senior Guard commander, the official IRNA news agency reported. |
Aug 08 2009
Weekend News Digest
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Fighting erupts between Taliban rivals and Pakistan government
By Zeeshan Haider, Reuters
2 hrs 1 min ago
| ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The Pakistani government has received reports that shooting broke out between two rivals for the leadership of the Pakistani Taliban, and one of them may have been killed, the interior minister said Saturday.
Pakistani news channels were carrying unconfirmed reports that Hakimullah Mehsud, one of the movement’s most powerful commanders, had been killed at a shura, or council meeting, held to decide who would succeed slain leader Baitullah Mehsud. “The infighting was between Wali-ur-Rehman and Hakimullah Mehsud,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told Reuters. “We have information that one of them has been killed. Who was killed we will be able to say later after confirming.” |
Aug 05 2009
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Science |
1 Climate change deal crucial for Pacific: Rudd
by David Brooks, AFP
16 mins ago
| CAIRNS, Australia (AFP) – Striking a new global deal to reduce the impact of climate change is crucial to the future of vulnerable Pacific island nations, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Wednesday.
Rudd was speaking in the northeastern Australian city of Cairns at the opening of the Pacific Islands Forum summit of regional leaders, where climate change has emerged as a key issue. Leaders from Australia, New Zealand and 13 Pacific Island nations will also tackle the impact of the global economic crisis and Fiji over two days of talks. |
Aug 03 2009
Weekend News Digest
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
Now with World and U.S. News.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Khatami condemns Iran’s "show trial" of reformists
By Parisa Hafezi, Reuters
Sun Aug 2, 11:32 am ET
| TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iranian authorities have tightened pressure on their opponents by staging what former president Mohammad Khatami condemned on Sunday as a “show trial” of 100 reformists accused of trying to instigate a “velvet revolution.”
The trial was the latest shot in an official campaign to snuff out defiance by those who say Iran’s June 12 election was rigged to ensure the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, due to be sworn in by parliament on Wednesday. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has endorsed the election result and demanded an end to protests, will formally approve the hard-line incumbent for a second term on Monday. |
Aug 02 2009
Sunday Morning Fiction
As I like to remind people from time to time, here on DocuDharma we encourage creative writing, fiction, and silliness (as well as advanced HTML, pretty pictures, and videos).
This is why we allow the virtually limitless amount of 3 essays a day (I can hardly come up with one most days), but if that stifles your creativity let me know and I’ll lobby for raising it.
I particularly like to feature them on Sunday mornings when you can be relaxed and easy going, and late at night when us insomniacs are desperate for something new and entertaining.
Today I’d like to highlight the latest installments of two running fictional features-
| Dystopia 13: Hetû by: TP_Alexander Sat Aug 01, 2009 at 18:20:04 PDT |
and…
| Dark Soul Chapter Nine by: Something The Dog Said Sat Aug 01, 2009 at 08:00:05 PDT |
The rest of you slackers-
GET WRITING!
Aug 01 2009
Weekend News Digest
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Afghan poll workers ambushed; U.S. soldiers killed
By Hamid Shalizi, Reuters
2 hrs 57 mins ago
| KABUL (Reuters) – A convoy of campaign workers for Afghan President Hamid Karzai was ambushed five times on Saturday, officials said, as Taliban insurgents step up efforts to disrupt the presidential election.
The U.S. military also said three U.S. troops were killed in the south, while a French soldier died and two were wounded in fighting in Kapisa province in the east, French officials said. The Taliban this week vowed to disrupt the Aug 20. presidential election and called on Afghans to boycott it. |
Jul 29 2009
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement
Wednesday Morning Science Supplement is an Open Thread
| From Yahoo News Science |
1 Monaco seeks global bluefin tuna trade ban
AFP
Tue Jul 28, 12:02 pm ET
| GENEVA (AFP) – Monaco has tabled a proposal to place Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna on the list of the world’s most endangered species in a move that could ban international trade of the fish.
As one of the most popular sushi staples, bluefin tuna has become increasingly in demand in recent years and its stocks have plummetted over the last decade in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Now, according to a draft proposal put forward by Monaco with CITES, the UN agency against illegal wildlife trade, stocks are so fragile that the species should be classified as being at threat of extinction. |